NYT: Violent Crime in Cities Shows Sharp Surge

[babylonsister]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/09/us/09crime.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Violent Crime in Cities Shows Sharp Surge


By KATE ZERNIKE
Published: March 9, 2007

Violent crime rose by double-digit percentages in cities across the country over the last two years, reversing the declines of the mid-to-late 1990s, according to a new report by a prominent national law enforcement association.

While overall crime has been declining nationwide, police officials have been warning of a rise in murder, robbery and gun assaults since late 2005, particularly in midsize cities and the Midwest. Now, they say, two years of data indicates that the spike is more than an aberration.

“There are pockets of crime in this country that are astounding,” said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which is releasing the report on Friday. “It’s gone under the radar screen, but it’s not if you’re living on the north side of Minneapolis or the south side of Los Angeles or in Dorchester, Mass.”

Local police departments blame several factors: the spread of methamphetamine use in some Midwestern and Western cities, gangs, high poverty and a record number of people being released from prison. But the biggest theme, they say, is easy access to guns and a willingness, even an eagerness, to settle disputes with them, particularly among young people.

“There’s a mentality among some people that they’re living some really violent video game,” said Chris Magnus, the police chief in Richmond, Calif., north of San Francisco, where homicides rose 20 percent and gun assaults 65 percent from 2004 to 2006. “What’s disturbing is that you see that the blood’s real, the death’s real.”

The research forum surveyed 56 cities and sheriffs’ departments — as small as Appleton Wis., about 100 miles northwest of Milwaukee, and as large as Chicago and Houston. Over all, from 2004 to 2006, homicides increased 10 percent and robberies 12 percent.

more...

[bullimiami]

1. predictable. trickle down lawlessness.

[lovuian]

4. Poverty promotes this Despair promotes this and thats

why the coming years in America will look like the Depression days

[Atman]

2. In a tangentially related story, sales at Saks, Nordstroms and Tiffany's UP UP UP

When will these fucking idiots get it?

The economy is NOT good just because billionaires are making more billions.

.

[lovuian]

3. How can you expect to control Iraq when you can't control

your own cities

[NewJeffCT]

5. didn't the Brady Bill expire a few years back?

Bush let it expire after 10 years, or am I thinking of something else?

[benEzra]

7. No...

didn't the Brady Bill expire a few years back?

Bush let it expire after 10 years, or am I thinking of something else?

No, the Brady Bill didn't really expire, it was just replaced by a more comprehensive background check requirement. The original Brady Bill was a mandatory waiting period and optional background check for purchase of new handguns. It was replaced in the mid-to-late 1990's by the NICS point of sale background check system, which requires a mandatory background check for the purchase of any new firearm (not just handguns) and dispensed with the background check.

I think you're thinking of the 1994 Feinstein ban, which prohibited civilian self-loading rifles from being marketed under any of 19 Scary Names, and prohibited rifles and shotguns with protruding handgrips from having certain other features that Ms. Feinstein didn't approve of. That law expired in 2004.

[ClintonTyree]

6. Truer words have never been spoken...

“There’s a mentality among some people that they’re living some really violent video game,” said Chris Magnus, the police chief in Richmond, Calif., north of San Francisco, where homicides rose 20 percent and gun assaults 65 percent from 2004 to 2006. “What’s disturbing is that you see that the blood’s real, the death’s real.”

No screaming shit! Are video games responsible? To and extent. Is the availability of cheap handguns on the street responsible? To and extent. These things, along with high nationwide unemployment and underemployment, and the rapid spread of Meth combine to make a perfect storm for violent crime. And we can't build prisons fast enough to house the convicted felons we have. The United States leads the world in number of people incarcerated, and we've just broken the surface of trying and convicting the Bush administration. :wow: Hell, when all the trials and convictions from Bush's cabal are finally tallied we'll have to build a new prison just to hold them all. ;) Maybe two!

[PerfectSage]

8. *'s surge is working

Soon America will become a failed state like Iraq.